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What We Write About When We Write About Digital Writing

Terry took the time to grab some of my questions about digital writing (see more at this post by Terry) and popped them into a collaborative Etherpad, and then joined those questions with thoughts of his own. I made my way back this weekend to continue the conversation, and Sarah joined in a bit, too. Maybe others have done so by now, as well. The topics revolved around digital writing, related to some riffing I had done off of a piece by Anna into the margins of the writing (see my original post).

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This kind of writing is very demanding for readers ‘out of context’. It invites the reader to engage with the digital text, but that invitation goes beyond the routine and ‘normal’ one authors usually extend to their readers. It is more like a “create your own adventure” and it asks the reader to be part of the action of creating the text. to be part of the process of creating meaning. And that is quite a bit more than the usual ‘ask’, more than asking readers to dot the “i” and cross the “t”. I think digital writing is more about a process than a product. It is more ‘verb-y’ than ‘noun-y’.

Antispamilococcus: empty mat Last call and then a drink, I thought. My knuckles paused over the door knocker. I had caught sight of the space on the porch where an empty mat had been. Now it was an empty rectangle framed by dirt. An unwelcome mat. That’s when I noticed a dark smear on the screen door glass.

Finding time, or making time, to visit and read these many blogs is a huge challenge for many. Most of those I see in the #clmooc and #modigiwri space are educators. I’m not a traditional teacher, but work in the non-school space, and am semi retired, at least from the perspective of no formal job/income and my time is my own. Thus, I can make time to dig into this connected learning “neighborhood”, as Sheri Edwards has named it.

However, the people we need to have involved in raising kids, or supporting schools and non-profits, are parents, business people, philanthropists, etc. who have full time jobs and responsibilities, and have less time, and perhaps less motivation, to dig into these blogs and learning threads on Twitter.

I feel that this is the challenge of the next few years. How do we expand the choir so that it includes others who need to be deeply, and consistently involved?